He generally fails to spend Saturday nights with her once the two get into a drunken disagreement; so I concluded that perhaps in reconciliation he was staying with her this alternate night.

Then ─ just ahead of 11 p.m. ─ I noticed him about to back into the drive-way. I was almost about to turn off the T.V. for the night.

I came upstairs to avoid conversation with him.

And then I just listened.

Soon, I heard him crack open a can of beer, so I knew that he would be seating himself in front of the T.V., and it was no more my responsibility.

I don't now recall what time it was when I got into bed, but at least it was well ahead of midnight.

Just after 4:00 a.m. I found myself awake enough to decide to use the bathroom.

Unfortunately, when I returned to bed, I found myself entering into a state of great unease. Part of it likely was due to my frustration and self-loathing arising from the previous late afternoon/early evening when I 'danced on the brink' until I finally took the dive in.

At any rate, I began worrying about finances, and how it seems inevitable that I will have to withdraw at least $2,500 from my already diminished RRSP account in order to meet the upcoming annual home insurance in early June and the annual property taxes in early July.

Every year since my working salary came to an end, I have found it essential to withdraw RRSP money to make it through.

Mark pays half of those expenses, and my wife Jack and I have paid the other half.

But that was the way of it when her two sons were in school. One is now 21 years of age, and the other is 18 and employed.

It used to be that Jack would deposit her restaurant wages into our chequing account when she got paid, but she does not do that anymore. She has grown so deep into debt that she often uses an entire paycheque just to pay off credit bills.

Thus, I never see that money anymore. I only get to transfer some over to our account on-line when she notifies me that a certain figure is available for the transfer from her account.

I am left with less and less of my monthly pension to live on ─ the monthly mortgage of $1,600 devours the majority of it.

My brother Mark thinks he is paying half of the mortgage, but he is not ─ thanks to two remortgages Jack pressured me into when I was still employed.

I no longer remember what the mortgage payment originally had been for he and I ─ something over $300 every two weeks, I believe. So he keeps 'paying' me what he believes is half of that when he makes a monthly reconciliation of household expenses like cablevision, internet, house telephone, gas, and electricity.

He splits the total of those utility payments in half for the two of us, and then reduces my half by what he thinks he owes me for the mortgage.

But the mortgage payment is no longer something well under $800 in a four-week period ─ it has become $1,600 monthly. And I am shouldering that increase because it was my folly, caving to Jack's pressure to let her enter into the Thai restaurant field when she bought the now-defunct Pattaya Thai Restaurant in New Westminster back in the first half of 2010.

Mark is half-owner of our home ─ plus he put in a $40,000 down payment.

However, only my name is on the title ─ there were a couple of legal reasons for this when we first acquired the property back in June 2002.

But before Jack emotionally blackmailed me into the mortgage renegotiations, only about $125,000 was owed on the mortgage. Now, with a built-in line of credit debt, the full figure is well over $327,000.

To my thinking, if the property was to be sold, then after the bank had been paid off, Mark would pretty much be entitled to whatever 'profit' there was remaining on the sale. Jack's ambitions had already used up our share.

Along with a lot of RRSP money I used to have.

Mark keeps declaring that he wants to sell the house after hie retires at the age of 65 in July of next year.

If that happens, then my life as I know it would essentially end. I will not move into some apartment with my two step-sons ─ and their two girlfriends.

The youngest boy's girlfriend practically lives here ─ she has slept with him every night for the past week, and generally does so about five nights a week. But this recent streak of overnighting makes me wonder if a new trend of semi-permanence has begun.

Jack basically stays downtown in Vancouver to be near the Thai restaurant she works at. We are married in name only.

And I am left a prisoner of this house with her two sons aggravating the hell out of me in one way or another.

There will never be a scenario of me sharing an apartment with them and everyone they bring home.

And since I do not drive, I will be left to the stark necessity of disposing of almost all that I own ─ including my desktop computer. I would not be moving to an apartment ─ I have no furniture, and cannot afford any.

I would need to get some cheap room somewhere. And it wouldn't have internet service.

My marriage would be through ─ I would have to get the banks to disassociate my wife from anything to do with me. It would be the end of our joint accounts.

And from there, I would not expect to be alive too much longer. This great reversal of my life's conditions would mark my finish.

With an end to my on-line presence and my desperate hopes and dreams of deriving a second income through my half-dozen websites and this miserable blog, it would be time for me to call it quits in every way.

I am 66 years old now, with my 67th birthday coming in the Fall.

My eyes are so bad I cannot read books anymore ─ I gave that up at least 15 years ago.

With the various other physical damages I have incurred ─ including a deranged left shoulder I have never sought medical attention for, and that left knee that had to have its quadriceps tendon surgically reattached in early November 2010 ─ I feel almost as if I am spent.

My knees burn from cartilage damage as a result of excessive running when I was a younger man.

And there is the sexual dysfunctions ─ but I'm not going to venture into any explanations there.

Hell, I'm lonely ─ painfully lonely.

This was never supposed to be the retirement I was working towards.

I'm a prisoner of this house, and the overcrowded part of Surrey in which it is located. I have wanted to get out of Surrey and live in a part of the country where Nature prevailed ever since I was about 12 years old.

That's a long, long time to be living somewhere a person does not want to be.

But youth is gone, and so is its vigour and hopeful optimism.

The only way that I can see to possibly persuade my brother Mark from wanting to sell at his retirement is if everything was split four ways ─ not just two like it is now.

He could also still carry on in the blissful belief that the mortgage was what it used to be.

So he would pay one quarter of costs; Jack and I the second quarter; and her two sons would have to pay a quarter share apiece, too.

That might work with the youngest lad ─ he seems to be financially practical.

But the 21-year-old is a financial fool. He isn't even working ─ he has quit his second job after quitting the first back in...was it February?

He had been unemployed for about five weeks between jobs, and then only worked perhaps an equivalent amount of time at that second job.

He had been working since at least as far back as the Fall of 2013 ─ it was at least September ─ yet he has never paid a share in anything. He has lived here scotfree.

I can get the declaration made to the boys through their mother that they are either going to have to step up, or be prepared to move ─ and probably before the end of next year.

But I have my doubts that the oldest lad will ever be a full contributor ─ he has no ambition.

And every dollar of help his mother sneaks his way is one more dollar that I seem to have to make up for because it further dilutes her restaurant wages and what she can afford to pass along to me for household expenses.

As I said, most of her wages I never see anyway due to her own massive credit debt.

Anyway, this was the trend my mind took as I lay in bed, alone and helpless in the dark night. It often feels that even God has utterly forsaken me, for he will not even bless my labours on-line of hours and hours per day in a futile effort to achieve a second income.

I had to get my mind off the suicidal concerns it was focusing on, so I rose a little after 4:30 a.m. and came here to my computer for about two hours, working upon one thing or another.

When I returned to bed a little after 6:30 a.m., the distraction had succeeded. Eventually, I managed a very little further sleep.

Heck, it might have been just after 9:00 a.m. when I rose. My youngest step-son Pote had already left to catch his bus to work.

There would be no leaving the house for me today ─ my spirit is too low. And since it is an overcast day ─ there seems even to have been a little rain overnight ─ sunning in the backyard is out of the question.

And with all that said, I think I will just depart further discussion of my day.

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I had so much hope relating to my retirement when first I visited Thailand in January 2003. I had fallen so in love with the country and its people that I determined that I would do my utmost to spend most of my retirement life there.

I was 53 at the time.

It has become financially impossible, and I just grow older and less able with each passing year.

This photo is from that first visit to Thailand in early 2003 ─ the description beneath is from the Google album where I have the image stored:

The photo was probably taken in January 2003 during my first trip to Thailand; I was with these ladies at some park unknown to me, but very near Udon Thani City.

At left is Jack (Supranee), whom I was to marry late in May on my third trip to Thailand in 2005; in the centre is Tukta, the delightful lady who was driving us about that day in her car; and at right is Tumma ─ a sheer sweetheart to me, even though she understood no English.

As I have said in the past, I wish that I was still with that Jack.

The one I am married to now ─ so completely remade and mutated here in the West since coming to Canada in May 2006 ─ is not someone I should have in my life.

I miss the old Jack so very, very much. She was just a simple village girl with a great heart.

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This report about acetaminophen and Canada's new official view concerning it is something I had not heard about until now:

As with most government departments anywhere, nothing generally gets done.

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Just within the past few days, I included in this blog a report on a study that found how mainstream pancreatic cancer treatments were by-and-large ineffective, but it's interesting how the study was interpreted by this observer:

That's what your doc will tell you, anyway. He'll spit out that tired old cliché... despite the fact that there's NONE as far as he's concerned.

If you've got terminal cancer with months to live, you're not the only one running out of time. He is, too -- he's running out of time to make some extra money off your illness.

So he'll use false hope to sell you on bogus, ineffective, and wildly profitable mainstream cancer treatments.

Well, my friend, it's time to tell him where to stick it.

Because while there IS always hope... while there ARE ways to beat even the deadliest cancers... new research shows how you WON'T get it from him!

The latest science focuses on one of the deadliest cancers of all. Some 95 percent of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer will eventually die of the disease -- sometimes within a matter of weeks or months.

The study finds just about every last trick your doctor pulls offers no hope at all when it comes to beating or even delaying pancreatic cancer.

All they'll do is drain your bank account and bilk your insurer out of thousands of dollars!

He may offer you a second chemo drug. Two are better than one, right?

WRONG!

The study finds pancreatic cancer patients given a second drug with the standard first med actually die slightly SOONER than folks given the one drug alone.

The doc may hoodwink you into a combo of chemo and radiation -- a.k.a. chemoradiotherapy. He'll tell you this can attack the tumor from two directions, but the study finds again no benefit at all to adding radiation to the ordeal.

Zip... zilch... nada!

The extra treatments won't give you extra time... but they WILL give you extra side effects. You'll spend some of your final months in this world battling the sickening side effects of the chemo and radiation treatments you never even needed.

This scam isn't limited to pancreatic cancer.

Just about EVERY end-stage cancer patient who puts his trust in mainstream medicine gets exploited by unethical docs out to make a crooked buck.

A study I shared with you just last year found chemo doesn't extend lives in end-stage cancer -- and in a terrible irony, it causes the healthiest patients to decline MORE rapidly.

So, if you've got an incurable cancer, it's time to ditch the so-called treatments that are now proven NOT to work and get what you really need: quality care in the hands of a skilled naturopathic medical doctor.

I have also reported about the FDA warning to physicians concerning fluoroquinone antibiotic usage, but here's that special interpretation that may have bigger bite for any consumers prescribed the dangerous medication and who might see this:

Infection? You probably don't need this antibiotic

Docs with a new drug are like kids with a shiny new toy.

Instructions? Who needs ‘em! They'll tear open the package and wing it as they go.

With kids, the worst that can happen is you get a broken toy. But when docs pull this act, you get broken people.

Patients are hurt -- and lives ruined -- by the rush to put everyone on the latest and greatest new meds, and it's gotten so bad that the FDA has had to give docs a public spanking over the issue.

This is a rare reprimand from the agency -- and an even rarer acknowledgement that mainstream medicine on the whole has screwed up big.

Fluoroquinolones ain't exactly gummy bears. They're big-time drugs for big-time diseases, like the ciprofloxacin (a.k.a. Cipro) everyone was stocking up on during the anthrax scare.

Big-time drugs come with big-time risks, yet docs are giving them out for conditions that are small potatoes, including run-of-the-mill UTIs and respiratory infections (many of which are viral and shouldn't get antibiotics anyway).

That's exposed millions of Americans to potentially devastating side effects, including a few your own doc may not even be aware of because -- like that kid with a new toy -- he's never even bothered to look at the instructions.

That's a bulge in your aorta, the main artery that carries blood from your heart, and it can lead to a stroke or even burst and kill you on the spot.

Unfortunately, I don't expect that the FDA warning will change much.

The agency has already urged docs to stop messing around with these meds... and they've been ignored by the very companies they're supposed to regulate.

The inmates are running the asylum!

Best you can do is make sure you don't take these drugs yourself unless there's an absolute certainty that you need them.

If you've got anthrax, then go ahead and grab that Cipro.

Everything else? Ask questions... and get a second (and even third) opinion, because common infections such as UTIs and respiratory illnesses usually have much safer and far more effective natural solutions.

It is time now for me to close today's post with an entry from my journal of 41 years ago when I was 25 years old, and living in a basement housekeeping unit in New Westminster.

I worked just one day a week back then ─ Friday ─ at a New Westminster charitable organization called S.A.N.E. (Self Aid Never Ends) that is today known as Fraserside Community Services Society.

I was serving as a truck swamper on S.A.N.E.'s blue pick-up truck ─ its only company vehicle.

Be aware that I often wrote my journal entries piecemeal ─ that is, at several sittings over the course of the day. It made for rather disjointed reading, alas.

FRIDAY, May 23, 1975Up just past 6:00 a.m..Bill and I had a pretty lax morning.The day has had shower periods and sunny periods.At lunch at Safeway I bought $4.42 worth of stuff: salad dressing, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, and apples.Art dropped in just before I left S.A.N.E. and committed me to showing up later.For lunch I shall have Red River Cereal, then take my last bag of Bruce's clothes back to work.

Bill and I had a rough time messing about with 600 or so pop bottles; Art dropped in once more confirming my obligation.

After work Bill and I hit the Dunsmuir for five each, Charlie going the price of one; very nice show from one of the familiars.

I came home and had five delicious hamburgers.

Next I shall phone Bill and impose on him to join me for a bottle of something (if wine, my expense) at Art's; then we'll blow; Judd is to be there. It's near 7:00 p.m.

(I went; the idiot wasn't there; I'll leave a note for him to come to my rescue, and hope he shows, the blackguard.)

My relief did not show. I got fed again; more hamburger.

Les came awhile, and Angie went to work.

Late, Art retired.

At 11:30 p.m. I watched a James Darren hosted special on 1965; it really sent me back and made me realize how I've squandered my years. That was the greatest decade I shall ever have had opportunity to grow in. Ahead, I fear, lies nothing.

My flab and puny muscles left Judd at 1:00 a.m. At least I rather controlled my vodka imbibing; I'll be abed by 1:45 a.m. at latest.

Tomorrow the Hyack parade.

I don't remember working with someone named "Bill." I find that a bit odd.

I've come to understand that I sometimes came home for lunch, although I do not now remember doing so. So it was just before I had left on my lunch break to go to Safeway that Art Smith conveniently ─ for him ─ caught me still at S.A.N.E.

He was in his early 40s, and also worked part-time at S.A.N.E. We had formed a pretty good friendship, but he was coming to be too monopolizing ─ always trying to corral me into wasting my time drinking with him.

I felt with no recourse but to agree to coming over to his home after work.

Meantime, I went and shopped at Safeway, and then went home for that feed of Red River Cereal.

By the way, $4.42 could certainly buy a lot at Safeway, couldn't it?

I think that I must have been given a few bags of my maternal cousin Bruce Halverson's clothes, and had been taking them in to S.A.N.E. as donations.

So I took the final bag of clothes with me when I returned to S.A.N.E. for the remainder of the afternoon.

The Dunsmuir Hotel was very close by ─ S.A.N.E. used to be located on Carnarvon Street where the New Westmninster SkyTrain Station now spills out. The hotel's beer parlour or pub was a very popular drinking hole, and back then it had stripper entertainment ─ just like all of the other hotels tried to do at that time.

I now cannot know, but "Charlie" may have been the husband of Esther St. Jean, a dear woman in her early 40s who often drove the S.A.N.E. truck. That would possibly explain why he was buying my co-worker "Bill" and I a beer each.

Anyway, after Bill and I had our five beers and enjoyed some nice stripper performances, we broke up and I headed on home for a supper of hamburgers.

My plan was to arrange with my old friend William Alan Gill to help me get out of spending the damned entire evening at Art's home. Art's younger brother Judd (Gerald) was supposed to be at the house.

I must have phoned Bill at a payphone, and then headed on over to Art's place.

But Bill never did show up, and I was stuck there until the early a.m.

Art just about invariably would cut his evening short by supposedly going for a nap, but it was rare that I ever saw him again that same night. I usually would give up after a few hours and go home.

I now do not remember who "Les" was that dropped by at Art's, but Angie (Angelina) was Art's wife ─ I think she was working as a waitress at the Pacific Café on Columbia Street near the foot of Eighth Street, if I am remembering the location correctly.

I would have enjoyed that James Darren musical feature on the year 1965 ─ heck, I'd really enjoy it now!